


back when we had nothing (we had everything)

by Anonymous



Category: Girl Meets World
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Superheroes/Superpowers, Angst with a Happy Ending, F/M, Gen, In which Riley is angry, Josh being the one person Maya can always fall back on, Journalist!Josh, Loyalty, Maya and Riley don't meet until college, Maya grows up in a bad part of town, Superheroes, Superpowers, The corruption that comes with power, Weddings, and Maya is the one she takes it out on, fluff?, how fun is this, i guess you should not judge a fic by its summary, marriages, yeet
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-10
Updated: 2020-04-10
Packaged: 2021-03-02 03:47:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,127
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23568571
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: “Miss Sunshine is currently in downtown New York City alone for the first time since she made her debut, talking with a group of reported robbers,” the newswoman says, calmer than Josh can give Maya credit for. “The fugitives themselves seem to be a group of teenagers,—” the footage cuts to the standoff; an array of kids are fighting, and they seem—sohelpless.“Fuck,” Maya curses as she lifts Josh's head away from her lap, “Fuckingshit.”“Wait—Maya—”She turns to him sharply, eyes wide, before she seems to settle on, “I'll explain later. I have to—” Maya starts to throw an apology over her shoulder as she clambers out onto the fire escape.“Wait, what are you doing—?”She grimaces, ducks her head and glances back behind her where there is nothing but blaring horns and hard asphalt five stories below and, with a last look at him, wraps the shadows around her as easily as a blanket in her cold room and disappears into the night.(Josh is a journalist; Maya is a superhero. They defeat the odds together, or not at all.)Superhero AU.
Relationships: Farkle Minkus & Riley Matthews, Isadora Smackle & Maya Hart, Isaiah "Zay" Babineaux & Lucas Friar & Maya Hart & Riley Matthews & Farkle Minkus & Isadora Smackle, Josh Matthews & Maya Hart, Maya Hart & Isadora Smackle & Isaiah "Zay" Babineaux, Maya Hart/Josh Matthews, Renee & Carla (Girl Meets World), Riley Matthews & Farkle Minkus & Lucas Friar, Riley Matthews & Maya Hart
Comments: 8
Kudos: 20
Collections: Anonymous





	back when we had nothing (we had everything)

**Author's Note:**

> It has been several months since I started writing this, abandoned it twice and then started writing it again. I sold my soul for this mess of a relationship but a couple things you need to know: Riley and Maya didn't meet when Maya's parents divorced; they meet wayyy later on in college, but somehow still become good friends. Maya grows up and becomes a good person on her own, and all the friends she makes that lead her to Riley make her even better.
> 
> P.S.: Why is Disney so confusing??? Okay here are some new canon age things for this fic because of the apparent age difference I've heard of quite a few times about Maya and Riley being at least nine months apart (or something—for the sake of my sanity, I put it this way). Maya is nineteen, Josh is twenty-one, and Riley is eighteen in this fic.

She tumbles into his newfound New York City apartment window at eleven on a Wednesday night, bleeding and cursing profusely. She's clearly in pain, cursing at said pain, then tripping over the things on the floor and cursing at those as well, and Josh is jumping up from his laptop before he even recognizes what he's doing. He leads her to the restroom and orders her to sit on the edge of the bath as he ransacks the dorm for the _first aid kit, where did Eric put it—_ he shouldn't have let his brothers help him unpack, his apartment's been a mess since he moved in and he's barely had time to clean up—

The masked girl gives a strangled gasp that makes him rush to make sure she's alright, her arm pressing tightly to her stomach. She does not give him a second glance other than the look she gives him when he's turning on the warm water, whispering a strained _thank you_ as she hisses agony through her teeth.

“Superheroes in New York City?” he asks, when she's perched on his kitchen counter with a mug of coffee and bandages carefully wound around her waist. “Heard about all of the super-kids, but—I didn't hear about any defenders.” She nods, smiles tightly at him.

“Someone had to step up.” Her voice, though strained, is strangely familiar, like the crackle of a record before it plays a song, but Josh can't place it, and just before he begins to really _think_ about it she's slipping off the counter and telling him, “I should go.”

“But your cut—”

“I'll figure it out myself,” she cuts him off, shoots him a reassuring smile that is so far away from what she aims it to be that she drops it. “Just—thank you. Like, a shit-ton of thank you's. And, um, sorry for getting blood on your stuff.” And as soon as she's said those last words, she is gone, swiftly climbing through and out the window and disappearing into the noise and lights of the city.

—

Come Monday morning, his niece sends him a text with a link to the NYU news website, headline reading " _GROUP OF SUPERPOWERED MINORS TACKLING HUGE CRIMES IN THE CITY"_ and a few blurry shots of five figures—one a blur the color of midnight, another, a sunbeam in the shape of a young woman, the others an array of bright and dark skin and suits alike.

 **HOW COOL???** Riley sends alongside this, a happy-face emoji following straight afterwards, and beams at him from across campus on her way to class.

Josh grins.

Maya Hart, one year older than Riley and decades wiser in that she didn't grow up in or anywhere near the suburbs, sits next to him in writing class even though Josh _knows_ she didn't even sign up for it. She doesn't look at him, focused on listening to the teacher and taking notes on the laptop she'd gotten for her eighteenth birthday. Mrs. Abruso is their AP English teacher, and good at it—she's eccentric and incredible at what she does, and when she sees Maya Josh finds himself expecting the flash of recognition that comes with it.

"So how do you know Mrs. Abruso?" he asks when he follows her out of class, and she fixes her gaze curiously on him.

Maya looks over, brushes her hair back from her face. "Uh, I've known her since I was, like, five. She used to watch me whenever Mom went into... whenever Mom was busy. I haven't seen her since I was fourteen and she still wears the same jacket." Maya gives a one-shouldered shrug as she hefts her backpack up, changing the subject. "You coming to dinner tonight?"

She smiles as Josh says, "I wouldn't miss it for the world."

—

The masked girl slips gracefully through his window as she has every time she's come, her shoulders straight and tense with defiance.

“We're _not_ clueless,” she says to him as soon as she's done scanning the room, chin held high and spine straight despite the cozy-looking hoodie that looks as if it's been haphazardly thrown on. “We know how to handle things.”

Josh shuts off the television and raises an eyebrow at her. “Where's this coming from?”

“You called us _kids,_ ” she snaps, “in the newspaper.”

The _NYU_ newspaper. “You go to NYU?”

“That doesn't matter. You called us kids like we don't know what we're doing.”

Josh raises an eyebrow and peers at her. “ _Do_ you know what you're doing?”

The masked girl flounders for only a moment, mouth opening before snapping shut and opening again. “We're figuring it out. And you and your _stupid_ newspaper column isn't helping us help the people around the city who need it. You made us out to look like _amateurs,_ and—and it was a dick move.”

“Well, what do you expect _me_ to be able to do about it?” he shoots back, not catching the strange flicker of shadow that runs along her fingers. “It's already printed and spread out across the campus.”

She stills at his words, crossing her arms and firmly casting her gaze away from him, and Josh realizes distantly that she's not just angry. She's terrified, and it's hissing under her skin like a well-hidden snake, waiting to strike her.

“My best friend was nearly _killed_ tonight because they distracted her with your words, Josh.” She searches his gaze, her own eyes hard and furious. “We're not invincible, but what you wrote—what you _did_ —it's making us more vulnerable than we should be if we're going to try and help this city.”

Josh stares long enough for her to deflate, squeezing her eyes shut and raking a hand through her hair.

“I didn't choose this,” she finally says. “I didn't think—but Renee and Car—my old friends. They need a better life. So many people out there need something to _change_ for them, _now,_ and _I'm_ not— _most_ of us aren't qualified for the job, but we're _trying,_ okay?”

She watches him for a long time, arms still crossed and fingers curled tight, her eyes dangerous and sharp and burning with a flame Josh knows he's seen somewhere. After too long under this fiery gaze of hers, he leans back into the couch, rakes a hand through his hair, and nods.

She settles down on the arm of the couch in a whirlwind of dark movement, stuffs her hands into her pockets. It's a second of the laptop filling in the silence before she casts him a one-eyebrow-raised kind of look and asks incredulously, “ _Gilmore Girls,_ Josh? Really?”

Josh splutters. “It's a good story—do you even understand the concept of a good story?”

“I'll AP Literature your ass out of this city,” the girl quips back, the upper half of her face shrouded in shadows and yet displaying the perfect amount of competitive spirit.

“Wanna bet?” Josh challenges, leaning up to reach for a bag of Bananagrams tiles; she locks eyes with him, grin playing at her lips.

Come four in the morning, midnight girl has beat Josh out of the ballpark in Squabble, they're on season three of Gilmore Girls, and she's nearly about to slip out the window when Josh starts, “Wait—”

She stops, turns to look at him. Shadows gather around her face quicker than he can register any other features, and she quirks an eyebrow at him.

“I'm—sorry. For writing that about you guys. It wasn't…” He stops, tries to collect himself as he stacks tiles upon each other. “I was in the wrong. I'm sorry.”

The girl smiles, and it's so unexpected that Josh nearly drops the tiles he's gathered. “It's fine. I shouldn't have exploded like that, either. It's—it's a bad habit, so we were both—you know,” she shrugs, swings her other leg over the windowsill, and says, “See you around, Josh."

It's only when he's cleaned up all of the tiles and is settling into the couch for sleep that he realizes he never asked her for a name (and she never gave him one).

—

Come Thursday morning and several all-nighters later, Calypso and Miss Sunshine are coined as the main duo of heroes' names in the NYU Daily. It's in the midst of a turnaround article and nights spent researching New York's new heroes that Josh had come up with the name; he can only hope it'll stick. Maya shakes her head with a soft smile as she reads the first issue right where he finds her—sitting in the bay window of the library with a Psychology book on her lap and her hair falling golden over her face. Calypso gets the last issue Josh had been able to snag before they were sent out, and her hands curl around it, fingers brushing over the ink. She beams at him and he's momentarily too blinded to see; she is a black hole of a human, sucking up all the light around her, but Josh can see those bright blue eyes glittering within all of that and he cannot help but smile back.

“What's your topic for the report due on Tuesday?” Josh finds himself asking on a cold New York City night, both he and Maya tightening their fingers around their thermoses of hot chocolate.

Maya hesitates for a fraction of a second, answers, “Superheroes.”

“Like the ones here?”

“Yep,” she breezes. “I'm not losing an opportunity to write for the NYU paper, and this seems like the perfect way to do it.”

Josh gauges her expression, trying to note every movement she makes. “You think they're gonna be good for the city?”

She frowns for a fleeting moment, looking away, and answers slowly, “I think that even though a lot of people are going to say the superheroes are a new hope, I believe that if normal people stepped up, we could help the people in places like my old neighborhood better than destroying half the city trying to stop robberies, but Riley'd argue.”

Josh hums, gaze carefully set on her but sweeping away every so often to watch where he's going as they walk the busy sidewalk. Neither of them say a word for a few moments in between weaving through people and around the city's musicians, but Maya reaches out to lace her fingers with his with a quick glance and a mirthless smile, and tugs him along behind her.

“Maya—” her name falls from his lips but she doesn't seem to hear him; she tugs him along for what feels like hours, her hand clutching tightly to his, before pulling them both up the steps of her apartment building. “Maya,” Josh laughs, meeting her gaze, slightly winded, “Why—”

She leans up and kisses him, and the air leaves his lungs in a single breath.

When she pulls away, hands leaving where they rest on his shoulders and letting his arms untangle from around her waist, Maya purses her lips, sways back on her heels, and smiles wide enough to knock Josh off his feet.

“Um,” she says, haltingly, pauses. “Tell Topanga I said thanks for the hot cocoa.”

She rushes inside without a word more and leaves Josh breathless behind her.

—

Josh doesn't catch sight of her until the next Saturday on his way to class with her on her way home, and by the time he does Maya is brushing past her with no indication that she's even seen him. He pauses, and nearly gets shoved over—it is New York, after all—and manages to speak her name. It is a stammer and it is quieter than he intended, but maybe that's for the best. She can't have heard him.

Her head tilts, and she falters once before she continues on.

—

“Why do you trust me?”

The girl smiles; he looks at her, at her face cast in shadow and hands tugging on smoky black threads, as she responds. “What do you mean, why do I trust you?”

Josh sits up on the couch and pauses _Sugar Rush_ to shoot her an incredulous look. “What—I'm a journalist for one of the most widespread articles across this campus. If I found out who you were—”

“You wouldn't tell anyone,” she cuts him off before he can even begin. “I know you. You're a good guy—”

The girl freezes, shadows flickering to reveal an expression of terror and a face Josh doesn't get to register before it's guarded again. “I—sorry, I spaced, but, um... I had a—feeling, about you. I trust—yeah. I trust you.” She meets his gaze for a fraction of his second and lets his eyes try to register the features that are visible to him—but they are strangely fuzzy, too blurry for him to really see. “There are... a lot of things changing, for me, and... you seemed like someone who'd stay steady even with all of this. No matter who I am.”

Josh tilts his head. “Does this mean you're going to tell me your name?”

She tilts her head back in a laugh, blond locks escaping her hoodie as she does. Her throat is pale and marked with a large, searing kind of scar, one that does not end at the base of her neck but continues down to the rest of her. Josh is sure he knows this scar, is sure that he recognizes it, but he doesn't know from _where_ —bad memory and thoughts falling through cracks are a result of his early birth and he wishes for all it's worth that his notebooks could hold everything he can't cram into his brain.

“I don't know, Josh,” she responds after a moment, looks at him with that smile of hers playing on her lips and brushes her hair away from her eyes. “Still haven't figured out _how_ much I trust you yet.”

“ _What—”_ Josh sputters as he shoots her an indignant look and she laughs again, her grin settling into a soft smile.

“Okay, look at them, the lady who keeps opening her oven like that is going to die,” she points out after unpausing the television.

“How do you even know if—?”

She frowns, gestures at the TV to where the chéfs are talking about the aforementioned lady, and Josh shakes his head with a laugh. “You a fortune-teller too?”

“Maybe.” She focuses her gaze on the screen firmly and he watches her do so, but he still never catches the looks she gives him: wistful and terrified and full of exhaustion.

—

Maya waves the daily newspaper at his face come their usual Thursday night Matthews-Hart dinner, grin bright and proud, and tugs Riley close as she shouts, “Guess who got their story in the college paper?”

Riley beams at Josh, all sunlight and dreams come true, and does jazz hands as the Matthews cheer, all swarming the blonde with hugs and celebration.

“What, no party for me?” Josh asks, and Maya sticks out her tongue at him.

“No party for the people who write regularly for the NYU news column, okay, it's a thing.” Riley nods sagely at this, one arm still wrapped around her college friend and the other reaching for a tater tot. Auggie prods at Riley's side and the brunette winces, her expression twisting into that of annoyance as soon as she recovers from whatever pain she's felt; Maya swats him away with a quick glare and casts Josh this _look_ that he isn't able to understand before she's whispering something to Riley, the both of them standing up as one unit and excusing themselves from the table.

They return half an hour later in the middle of a tater tot food fight, arms looped together loosely, Cory hiding under the table and shrieking about savages. The blonde huffs out a laugh as soon as she sees them—Josh is standing on a chair with two handfuls of tater tots, Auggie's clambering up the countertop with Katy pointing at things for him to hold onto, and Shawn and Topanga are loading up on cold fries from last night's dinner—and unloops her arm to sneak over to Josh while Riley ducks under the table with her father.

“What's up with Matthews?” she asks, nodding to Cory—Josh bites back a snort and tilts his head.

“Auggie and I stole a few tater tots.”

Maya quirks an eyebrow and comments, “Daring.”

“Only if you don't consider that he's gravely outnumbered,” Josh starts, but Maya's devilish grin convinces him quickly that he's terribly wrong.

“Oh, _is_ he now?” she drawls in that way of hers that's always so distracting, tugs him off of the chair. She gathers the fabric of his collar in one hand, a smile playing on her pretty lips, and pulls him close enough that if he leaned forward their noses would touch; Josh sputters out half-sentences and unfinished thoughts.

“Maya—you—why—what are you—?”

Slimy and cold goo and the sharp tang of preserved tomatoes slides down his cheek and onto his old VBS T-shirt, and Maya beams as she takes a step away and Riley sticks her tongue out from atop the table, ketchup bottle dripping red.

 _They've joined the game,_ Josh thinks, and he has no time to react before Auggie is pulling him behind the table that his brother is climbing out from under and Maya is tugged away by Riley, the blonde holding stern determination on her face and the brunette with laughter in her eyes.

“Josh, don't do it!” Auggie cries as he tugs Josh back by the elbow, “Don't fall to the cries of the tomato!”

“I won't,” Josh promises the curly-haired boy, wiping his face off with a napkin. “It barely has any effect against my undying fidelity.”

Maya snickers before steadying herself with potato ammo; Riley flips the cap of the ketchup open again behind her while Cory readies two handfuls of grapes. “What an original line, Boing,” Maya stage-whispers. 

Josh sticks out his tongue at her in retaliation.

Topanga narrows her eyes, and the standoff breaks with a battle cry and Auggie running around the table to tackle his father, then an explosion of shouts and sauces being flung.

Josh laughs, throwing his tater tots into the air in favor of hearing the Tater Tot King's cries of agony, and Maya grins at him across their battlefield, all golden light and shadow.

—

“Hey, Matthews,” Maya calls before Josh can get down the steps of the apartment the same night. She's slipped out of the alleyway on Riley's side, brushing the rust and dirt from the fire escape off of her hands, and she is freshly showered—her pajamas and wet hair are a testament to that.

“Hey?” Josh says in answer as she steps up to him, blue eyes shining with apprehension.

Her teeth tug on her bottom lip for a moment, and she tilts her head back to look at him. “About that kiss—if you don't—then I'm really—I just don't want to mess up whatever's between us, so if you don't have feelings... for me, then it's—it's no pressure, or anything like that.” She wrings her hands, takes a step back at realizing something that makes his chest ache, and shrugs. “Sorry, for um—avoiding you, I guess? I was really confused—”

“No—” Josh unfreezes, reaches out for her, “That's—that's not—shit, let me just—” he winces at himself, struggling to find words. “Maya, I—I'm—”

“What? You're what?”

“I—”

“Josh, will you just say—”

He kisses her, her arms winding around his neck, fingers brushing through the tangles of his hair, and it feels like flying. She speaks his name against his lips, pulls back to search his gaze with her own eyes dazed and afraid.

“Wait,” she manages, forces out, “Wait, Josh, please don't do this if you don't love me or if you don't think you can learn to—fuck, I've been in love with you for _years,_ I don't know how to just—to _lose you_ if—please—”

Josh feels the ache in his chest and tangles his hands in her hair and whispers, “I will love you for as long as I possibly can, I want to love you until the sun _dies,_ Maya Hart, if you'll let me, because you're so—so _incredible_ —and I—I don't think there's ever been a time where I haven't loved you, for everything you do.”

She beams, heartbreakingly beautiful and dusted with gold in the lights of the city, and leans up to kiss him once more.

—

“Auggie?”

“We need to talk.”

“What—?”

The teenagers stand at the door to his apartment defiant and disheveled, Ava's hair up in curlers, Dewey in a dog-styled onesie, and Auggie holding onto Mr. Snuggles with one arm. The latter glares at Josh through his curls even as Ava starts falling asleep on his shoulder.

“Okay, no, I'm not—what are you three doing here in the middle of the night? You _know_ the way here is dangerous.”

Dewey makes a face. “We grew up here, Uncle Josh. We know our ways around.” Behind them, there's the flicker of darkness in a corner wreathed in shadow, and Josh blinks; he catches blue eyes and a smug smile before they disappear altogether a moment later.

“Are you going to let us in, or are we going to stand out here forever?” Ava murmurs, opening her eyes to raise an eyebrow at Josh. Auggie rolls his eyes when Josh startles backwards, grabs Ava's hand and pushes past into the apartment.

“You and Maya,” Auggie shoots as soon as they're inside, Dewey locking the door and running over to flop onto the couch where Ava's already sunk into the cushions. “Spill the beans.” He's more awake than Josh ever sees him most days, eyes alight with determination akin to the blonde he's talking about.

“Beans about—? Auggie,” Josh starts, his brows furrowing mostly of their own accord, “What do you mean by—”

Auggie interrupts with a spitfire of questions. “Are you guys dating? Have you kissed? Did she tell you she loves you yet?”

“Wh—” Josh releases a nervous laugh and shakes his head, feels the flush creeping up his cheeks as he says, “Auggie, it hasn't been _that_ long since Maya and I started hanging out—”

Dewey makes a buzzer sound from the couch as he smothers both Ava and himself in blankets. “You guys have known each other since forever.”

“How does that count if we barely ever talked?”

Auggie turns to the other two and hisses, “He doesn't remember the _Long Game,_ you guys,” and Ava lifts her head to stare at Josh with her eyes closed (she's terrifying anyway).

“You're telling me you don't remember the promise that Maya made to you when you guys were, like, _babies?”_

“She was fourteen,” Josh corrects, and Auggie whips around to face him.

“You know more than you're letting on,” he accuses, pointing a lanky finger at his own uncle. “Spill the beans, Uncle Josh.”

“What beans are there to spill?” Josh protests; Auggie gasps dramatically and lays a hand on his chest.

“My own uncle has _betrayed_ me.”

“You just pointed at your own uncle—very rudely, you know—so I doubt he's going to tell you anything now.”

“You were going to _tell me something?”_

“ _No._ Auggie, _why_ are you like this—I have class in the morning—”

Someone knocks on the door and all heads turn to it, then exchange a bewildered look before the three youngest turn to Josh. Dewey shrugs at Josh, and Ava twists her lips in a frown as she points out, “It's your apartment, Matthews.”

“And yet,” Josh murmurs with a shake of his head as he goes over to the door.

Maya smiles at him with more cool-headedness than Josh can ever muster at twelve in the morning. “Saw the silver trio sneak out. They with you?” There's a spark in those bright blue eyes of hers that suggests that she already knows the answer, but she only quirks an eyebrow and continues to meet his gaze steadily.

“Hi, Maya,” Dewey calls from inside, and Auggie waves his hands around wildly as he hisses his younger friend's name.

“Uh,” Josh says, and Maya gives him an amused look at his speechlessness.

“I can take them home,” she offers, hands in the pockets of her NYU hoodie, head tilted. “If you want.”

 _No_ is on the tip of his tongue for several moments, and he shakes his head, opening the door wider. “I—they probably won't want to walk all the way there; they can—I'll take care of them. It's a weekday, you know, and they're way more stubborn than you two were—”

“Oh, trust me, no matter how stubborn I was, you'd have been in trouble, Boing.”

“Even more trouble than you already put me in?” Josh asks, feels himself sink into comfort with Maya's light laugh. “Jas and Charlotte still haven't stopped asking about you, you know. I'm tempted to give them your number.”

Maya's eyes glitter. “You should—I have so much to tell them about the time that you told me you'd play the Long Game, or when we danced at Mom and Dad's wedding, or the first time that we—”

“Maya, stop, no,” Josh cuts in, laughter spilling into his voice as he looks back at the trio—the teens have turned on Monsters Inc. and are all cuddled up on the couch, as they have every time they've been here, but Ava's glanced over at them several times already and he's pretty sure she's listening. “You're really leaving me to face the wolves like this?”

“What? No.” Maya shoots him a wide grin, “We'll face them together. I'm staying over.”

“Wh—oh my gosh—”

“We're all adults here,” she tells him, slipping past him easily.

Josh closes the door behind him and exclaims, “Well, _they're_ not!”

Maya waves a hand in dismissal and continues, “Just go—like, go to sleep, Boing, I'll watch them.”

“I am not going to—”

“I'll take care of them, Josh. You have class in the morning, so just—”

“We _both_ have class in the morning. This is _not_ a good plan—”

“Josh, just go to—” she takes to pushing him towards his room as they bicker, Josh protesting but, not wanting to hurt her, barely fighting back physically— “Josh, _seriously._ I will handle them, I've spent more time with them than you have, and you can _go the fuck to sleep._ ” When he still doesn't give in, she groans, grabbing him by the hand and turning him to face her. “If you don't go to sleep right now, I'm going to drag you in front of the TV and kiss you and go to sleep while you get to answer their questions.”

Josh blinks. Her raised eyebrows lower as she peers at him incredulously. “You would prefer being interrogated over going to sleep?”

“I would prefer that _you_ get sleep—though the kissing as a distraction is kind of, um, like faking _something,_ isn't it—”

Maya leans up, presses a kiss to the corner of his mouth and pulls back to gage his expression. Her eyes meet his, glimmering blue as they are, and she teases gently, “You know that this is real.”

Josh stammers out a not-answer once he gains his breath back, flushed and stumbling over his words. “Okay, but Maya—they're—if you kissed me fully on the lips then do you really think I'd be able to stop, no—they're barely even teenagers yet—”

“They're thirteen and Ava has forced them to watch enough rom-coms with them to last a lifetime,” Maya laughs, “So—either you go to sleep and get some rest, or I ruin their apparent innocence and neither of us get any because you believe that me kissing you isn't going to keep me awake all night.”

Josh contemplates, does not say a word, but does take a step back with a gentle nod and slow blink. Maya smiles at him proudly, lets his hand slip out of her grasp.

“You suck,” he says with feeling, and she snorts at him when his smile slips through.

“So do you. Now go to bed.”

Five in the morning finds Auggie shaking Josh awake and shouting about class and Maya's shouts addressing everyone in the apartment, and Ava and Dewey running for the door when there's a knock. Riley bursts in declaring that chaperones, (empty) lunch bags and full backpacks have arrived, Farkle slips in behind her with clean socks and jackets, and Maya makes a face at Josh from where she's making lunch for later. Tuna melts, being pulled straight from the pan and Ava steady and swift-handedly wrapping them with brown paper and a shout of _melt's done!_ are a quick line-up, and Maya seems hardly overwhelmed. She looks as she always does, wild blonde hair twisted into a giant tangled bun, eyes narrowed and focused on the task at hand, back bent as she slips away from the pan to type something on her open laptop; she spares the kids a glance as she types, only stopping to turn off the pan and slide the last tuna melt off of a pan and onto a plate.

It is easy for Josh to slip away in the chaos, to grab a jacket and slip his own laptop into his backpack before swinging it over one shoulder and emerging from his room. Riley and the others are already rushing out the door, the teenage students tripping and tumbling over each other as they argue in whispers, and Auggie is the only one who turns and waves at Josh before the door is shut behind them. He shakes his head, breathes a sigh of relief at the new quiet, and heads to the kitchen for his keys; Maya wraps the last sandwich and puts it into the microwave with a wayward glance at Josh.

“Ready?” she asks, crouching to pick up her messenger bag and laptop, phone making its way into her hoodie pocket, and Josh nods—she shoots him a smile, presses a gentle kiss to the opposite side of where she kissed him the night before as they slide out of the apartment (—”for balance,” she says to him when he asks—)and laces her fingers with his to pull him out the building and into the hustle and bustle of New York City.

—

On Halloween night, when Josh chaperones the party Riley and Maya throw with their parents away and Auggie trick-or-treating with his own duo of best friends, the shadows curl around the young blonde woman in the hippie outfit like it's part of her. At one in the morning a girl that is an extension of the night itself enters his room, silent and exhausted, and spends the night curled into his couch with those familiar shadows surrounding her. Josh is running on four hours of sleep in the one week collectively and still looking for essays that were due yesterday, and pins it to his overactive imagination; Maya and the midnight girl do not say a word to it.

—

Josh doesn't realize exactly how fucked up Maya's childhood had been until they're so close he can't breathe, and he catches sight of the scar at her throat. 

It's near-pink and fading and he thinks he knows it, but finals have taken him by storm and his brain is still buzzing with _too much information,_ so he stares at it for a moment before he brushes his fingers against it. They're curled up on the couch in front of the TV, where the screen is playing corny Netflix Christmas movies, and they haven't spoken for a while, so Josh's voice is raspy when he asks where it's from.

“Um,” Maya pauses, seeming to grasp out for words, “I—it's from when I was thirteen. I got into a lot of fights, before I met Farkle and Riley and everyone else. It was—one of the more dangerous ones, I guess? Carla'd found a knife, and they were teasing me about going soft after being sent to school. Maybe they were jealous or something, I dunno.” She shrugs, peers down at him with eyes that have seen too much, and tugs his fingers away from her scar. She kisses the knuckles of his hand before she sets it down on his stomach.

“Maya,” he starts, but she scrunches up her nose at him.

“I'm okay.”

“Seriously, though—”

"I'm _fine,_ Josh. It's just how I grew up. That's not anyone's fault. I'd rather know that I went through this kind of shit than dream of anything else.” She gives him a smile and leans down to kiss the tip of his nose. “Don't worry about it.”

He hesitates before saying, “Alright, but—”

She tenses underneath him.

“Maya?’ Josh asks, but she’s not paying attention anymore.

Maya furrows her brows, eyes distant and yet focused all the same. Her hair falls over her face, casting shadows that twist around her as easily as the sun shines on their planet but don't hide the clear anger shining on her face. She brushes it away, starting to flush, and reaches over for the remote to flip through the channels.

“ _Miss Sunshine, as the public has so dubbed her, is currently in downtown New York City alone for the first time since she made her debut, talking with a group of reported robbers,_ ” the newswoman says on the channel Maya stops on, calmer than Josh can give Maya credit for. “ _The fugitives themselves seem to be a group of teenagers, and have no masks whatsoever—_ ” the footage cuts to the standoff; a group of dark- and light-haired kids, an array of ethnicities, are fighting against the bright contrast to their dark outfits, and they seem—so _helpless._

“Fuck,” Maya curses as she lifts Josh's head away from her lap, “Fucking _shit._ ”

“Wait—” she's slipping off the couch before he can get more than a word out, sliding her backpack onto her shoulders and tightening the straps.

“ _What—_ ” Josh hears her whisper tersely, “She can't seriously be this bad—”

“Maya—”

She turns to him sharply, eyes wide, mouth opening and closing, before she seems to settle on, “I—I'll explain later. I have to—” Maya gestures at the window before turning back to it and throwing an apology over her shoulder as she clambers out onto the fire escape.

“Wait, what are you doing—?”

She grimaces, ducks her head and glances back behind her where there is nothing but blaring horns and hard asphalt five stories below, and with a last look at him, wraps the shadows around her as easily as a blanket in her cold room and disappears into the night.

—

The plan had been simple.

Paris had been convinced to get them in with her swift hands she earned from knitting and sewing, and the group would take what they could carry with the lights out—no cameras in the old man's store made for a good target, and they could take their time with this one. It had been so easy, other than the old man waking up too many times to check the store—Sienna's group had hidden well, and there hadn't been any potholes in the heist until she, the second-to-last of the group to emerge, stepped into the city air to blinding lights and the superhero who the downtown New Yorkers described as God with a spit and a scowl coming down for them.

Paris steps forward and shoves Sienna behind her without a word, arm held out to block her. She turns to Sienna with no small amount of fear and says, “She's not going to touch you.”

“I can take care of myself,” Sienna snaps, but finds herself frozen when she tries to move—not because she's scared, goddammit, because everyone's frozen and Sienna can _tell_ that Miss Sunshine is the one responsible. Paris stiffens in front of her, body shaking—she whimpers as she takes a step forward, then another, and it takes Sienna less than a second to realize that she's trying not to.

“ _What—_ ” she manages, forces her lips to move as much as they can as she glares at Sunshine. “You fucking— _let her go._ ”

“I will when you admit to your mistakes, apologize, and put the things you stole back,” the 'hero' says, her voice calm and clear.

Harley—tall and gangly and freckle-faced guy, kind and careful and always counting his steps—twitches like he's trying to break free, scowls, and hisses, “ _Bitch._ ”

The hero's chin lifts. “Are we resorting to name-calling, then? I have a lot more than you do up my sleeve, I guarantee you.” Paris has reached her by now, her eyes hard and glistening, limbs trembling.

“You can't _make us put this shit back—” Kayla starts, honey hair gathered into a tight ponytail, and Sienna feels her hands twitch up._

_“Shut your _goddamned_ mouth, Kay—”_

"Are you the leader of this group?" Sunshine asks, her _everything_ glittering—Paris, her upper body free, tucks her arms into her armpits and bites her lip. “You seem to want this girl back; if you apologize, I'll let her go.”

Paris reaches forward at this, her curls bouncing as she struggles. “Si—”

“I won't hurt her, but I'll take her to the station and have her written up—” At this, there's a loud clamor of protests and insults. 

“What kind of—”

“Don't you dare _touch_ her—”

“Goddamned _superheroes_ —”

“Hey,” Sienna starts, feels her head and neck come free of their frozen state and cracks her neck. “ _Hey._ ” The shouting continues; she rolls her eyes and hollers, “SHUT _UP,_ ASSHOLES.”

The street falls silent. Sienna meets Paris's eyes; even through the blinding lights imposing on them, she can see the forced courage on the latter's face and the reassurance in her carefully folded hands. She imagines shutting her eyes for a moment and breathing, and it feels as if she does even if she knows she hardly takes a breath to barrel forward.

“You an officer?” she asks, voice thankfully steady, and watches the lights flicker in the woman's confusion. “A part of the police force? Did you go to school or go through all the training to become one?”

“What—”

“You get a certificate for being a police officer?”

“No,” Sunshine pauses, “What are you getting at?”

“I'm getting at the fact that you haven't gotten any training or certificate or any shit to let you arrest people, but because you're a superhero you seem to think you're entitled to whatever the fuck you want.” Sienna lifts her chin higher and glowers (though it's more like squinting) at the hero. “Is it that white privilege shit or what that makes you think you're good enough to try and take away one of _my_ crew?”

“I—” Sunshine falters before she picks up again, “I don't have any _privileges._ The law dictates that—” she stops, startled, and twists around to peer at the sky—

Shadows engulf the street save for the strange, muted glow of something behind a curtain of darkness. Sienna curses loudly, barely heard over the chaos, and calls out for Paris. She follows the silhouettes, hands held out, still calling. It takes a few moments of fumbling, but soon enough Paris's voice is rising from the shouts and her hands are tangling with Sienna's and their feet bump together.

“Sienna,” Paris says her name in that strange wide-open-careful tone, soft enough that only Sienna can hear. “You okay?”

“Yeah—you?”

She squeezes Sienna's hand in response, both of them turning to listen to what's going on behind the curtain of darkness.

“Are you _fucking_ insane?” a familiar voice is asking, disbelief and annoyance running through her tone. “They're kids.”

“They were stealing—”

“That doesn't matter! They have lives beyond this, Riley, and I know that, because these are _my_ patrol grounds—I'm asking you how fucking _entitled_ you think you are, to take control of a group of _minors_ who you don’t know and _threaten_ them. Are you _insane?”_

There's a scoff, “ _I'm_ insane— _you're_ the one who's protecting a bunch of people who just committed a crime against a nice old man—”

“And _you're_ the one who's supposed to understand why they did it.” There's a flicker in the lights and the shadows darken. “You're the _hero,_ aren't you? You're the one who wanted to save the very people you're hurting right now—”

“ _God_ —they're _criminals_ —”

“Not _everything_ is in black and white, you _promised_ you’d keep it in mind when we started this whole thing—”

“Hey—” a new voice cuts in, and the shadows part to show off a path of blinding light and another hero. “They're listening. We gotta get out of here soon.”

“Yeah—” the familiar voice stops, “No, you two go and—sort this shit out, or something. If you can put out the news cameras, I can deal with this—”

“Alone?”

There's a long pause; Sienna slings her arm around Paris's shoulders in the silence and whispers an apology. “I shouldn't have dragged you into this, Kay's just as good at picking locks and you're going to wake up so late—”

“It's fine, Sienna,” Paris laughs softly. “I had the day off, and even if I didn't you'd be coming to find me anyway. Doesn't matter.”

The next, and last, words they hear from the heroes are sharp and diamond-cut. “We are _far_ from heroes, no matter what they call us in the newspapers or what powers we have, if this is what we do when no one's looking.”

When the shadows clear, Sienna's group has locked elbows and fanned out across the street, Sunshine and her tall partner are gone, and there is a lady in the street straightening the cuffs of her leather jackets and peering up at the sky. She turns to look at them and Sienna realizes that the shadows cast on her face are twisting of their own accord, uncovering her eyes. She smiles at them, blue eyes and pale face and long blond hair—it is down to her calves even when tied carefully out of her way, and Sienna hears the story of a promise that one of her moms had told her about once, about a girl made of sharp angles and hair she'd promised she'd never cut once upon a long, long time ago.

“No cameras, yeah?” she says, careful and slipping into the drawl of normal New Yorkers, and the other six turn to look at Sienna even though they already know the answer.

Sienna blinks and Paris tugs on her elbow. “Yeah,” she says after a moment. “No cameras.”

They're nearly done putting the stolen things back into the appliance store when Maya Hart, the original broke white girl with a flair for independence and anger issues, gets away from June and Tots' neverending flow of questions and slips in beside Sienna as she's picking up a radio. “What do you want?” Sienna snaps before she can help herself; Hart is silent and careful and unsettlingly stealthy, nothing like what the people on the streets say, and Sienna isn't used to it at all.

Hart snorts and crosses her arms. “I have a couple questions.” Sienna casts her a sidelong glance, watching her expression for any suspicious activity, but rests the radio on her hip and nods.

She asks first what Miss Sunshine had done and said—clarifies questions and seems to take everything Sienna says to mind. She listens, hums in agreement, but her face is pale and sharp by the time Sienna finishes recounting every detail.

“You all still live in the same places?” is what she says after many moments of silence; Sienna pauses in her steps.

“What you plannin' on doing, Hart, payin' your old 'hood a visit after all these years?”

The blonde quirks her eyebrows and glances down with the harsh laugh that Sienna's heard more often than not in her lifetime. “Not a half-bad idea, Leonards.” She shakes her head after a second, then looks out at where Paris is down on the curb laughing; beside her, Harley has his head in his hands and they are both left as untouched by the shadows as they possibly can be.

“Hey,” Hart says suddenly, “I thought your friend Paris wasn't good at this sh—kind of stuff.”

“Oh, she's not.” Kay arrives to take the radio out of Sienna's hands and tells Hart bluntly, “Si forced her to.”

“She's a better lock picker than you, and I asked her like you told me to—”

“I told _Harley_ to! She can never say no to you because you guys are like soulmates and both of you have huge crushes on each other—”

“KAY!” Sienna finds Paris's voice right alongside hers when she whirls around to yell at the light-eyed woman. Hart snorts as Kay waves a hand in dismissal, both of them watching her saunter into the store.

“More of a backtalker than when I last came by,” Hart muses, then startles back at her own words, and Sienna catches the twinge of regret in the blonde's wince as she shuts her eyes.

“You and your family doin' good?” Sienna dares to ask—it draws Hart's attention away from getting caught up in her mistakes like she always does. Renee had never been the best out of their group of seven to distract Hart from all those things that get caught up in her steady stream of guilt, but she'd taught her daughter well enough to keep her own crew from being so anxiety-ridden and it at least helps to smooth out the wrinkles in the older woman's brow.

“Could say that.” Hart shrugs, “We're getting by.” She looks at Sienna, and for a moment she looks no longer how the kids of New York describe her—she looks unsure and afraid and hesitant. “Your moms okay?”

“Yeah, they're fine. Mama told me everything about you, you know—I think I know more about your younger days than Mom does now.”

Hart laughs. “You remind me of them,” she says, but there's something else bothering her. Sienna quirks an eyebrow at her in question—Hart lifts a shoulder as if to say, _what can you do?_ and lets her smile drop into a frown. “I—” she starts, stops. “I have to... talk to a friend of mine. She's been getting really reckless lately, so.”

Sienna hums, and Paris runs up to them, a smile gracing her face—Hart takes a step back and the shadows curl around herself even tighter than before; Sienna looks to see the curly-haired familiar face of her partner in crime still glowing in the city lights.

“What's up?” Paris asks, and Hart tilts her head at Sienna.

“Nothin',” Hart says, looks between Paris and Sienna and smiles. “I better go.”

“It's only been an hour!” Paris protests; her hair is pulled back but still as messy as ever, and her glasses are perched on her nose where they hadn't been before. Sienna touches her tongue to the top of her mouth and loses herself in staring again until Paris's nudging her shoulder and Hart has already disappeared into the night.

‘Stop starin' at me,” is the first thing Paris says when she realizes Sienna is finally paying attention, starts to say something else but shakes whatever it is out of her head. ‘Kay's going to start teasing us again.”

“I was _not_ staring.”

“You totally were,” she shoots back, crooked smile and all, and Sienna looks back over her shoulder to where Hart had disappeared—she hasn't yet, she realizes. The blonde woman gives her a small wave, relinquishes the shadows covering the bright lights in order to wrap them around herself again, and backs away before turning a corner and really vanishing this time.

“— _enna,_ ” Paris is calling. Sienna turns back, feeling a jolt in her chest at how close they are, and blinks several times.

“Whaddaya want?” she asks Paris.

“Ready to get home?”

The rest of the group is watching them, backpacks empty—Sienna smiles, nods, and lets Paris take her hand. “Yeah. Let's go.”

—

Josh finds the whole group sitting in Topanga's murmuring amongst each other quietly with untouched food and drinks beside them, and Maya is the first to look up.

Isadora, raven-haired and brown-eyed and so clever she graduated high school two years prior, follows Maya's gaze to Josh. She does not reach out; her laptop is balancing precariously on her knee, and Zay's leaning on her shoulder, but she does stretch out her free limbs to catch the blonde's attention and tilts her head towards him. Josh gives her a quick smile that she blinks at, but returns; Maya stands and breaks their silent communication, and Smackle's gaze moves to Farkle in an instinct that Josh suspects will never go away. Maya steps over scattered papers and scrawls of homework and comes to stand in front of Josh.

“What—” Maya pauses, glancing over her shoulder to where Riley and Farkle are hunched over whispering, and tugs him out the door— “ _what_ are you doing here? Did you follow me?”

“No, I— _no._ I came to get coffee—I was going to wait up for you, it's been hours—”

“You've stayed up all this time? Josh, if I didn't come back, you should have gotten some _sleep_ —now you're going to wake up late for class in the morning—”

“I just wanted to confirm one thing, I couldn't—I can't sleep without knowing the one thing.”

Maya lifts her shoulders helplessly, “Yes, Josh, I'm—Calypso and I are one and the same. Now would you please just—”

Josh tugs her back quickly, turning her to face him. “No, that wasn't the question.”

“Then what _is?”_ she asks, lips curved in a frown, her hands tight and fisted. It's clear what she expects, and Josh wants to ask what she thinks he will, but her eyes are exhausted and his very presence makes her seem as if she is aching, and he folds the thought of asking one of his reporter questions with this quick examination.

“ _Why_ don't you like Gilmore Girls?”

Maya stares at him, mouth opening to answer before snapping shut. Her brows furrow, her mouth pinching into a tight line. “Wha—” she starts, a small laugh escaping her—her hand goes to cover her mouth and she crouches down with another laugh.

“Are you _laughing_ at me?” Josh asks offendedly, but it's teasingly now; he kneels in front of her, eyebrows raised, and she shakes her head.

“Oh my god,” Maya hides her wide grin in her hands. “Are you—seriously, Josh?”

“Yes, I'm _serious,_ it was keeping me up—Gilmore Girls is, like, the superior show and you don't like it and you won't explain—”

She leans up on her knees to cut him off with a kiss, hands tangling in the dark curls of his hair, and when she pulls away they're both all kinds of breathless and flushed and Josh is on the floor. Maya watches him sit up silently, her eyes fond. She sits up beside him, taking his hand and lacing their fingers together, and asks, “So you're not mad?”

“About?”

“ _About—_ ” she shakes her head, "Calypso. And me. Or both me's, I dunno—you're not upset at all?"

"Not—no. Other than… other than being upset with myself for not figuring out sooner," Josh lifts their joined hands to his lips and kisses her knuckles, "I'm not angry, or sad, or any negative emotion—not towards you. Never towards you."

"But I turn into this completely different—"

"It's still you," he interrupts swiftly, pressing a chaste kiss to the corner of her mouth. "You never turn into someone completely different, because—you have a strong, beating heart that loves the people around you ardently. You have your brain that always knows the same things, that doesn't change—you have your hands and your feet and your eyes, and you're still—you're still you no matter what masks or costumes you put on."

She blinks at him, her lips parting to inhale and exhale a cloud of mist, and clutches his hand tightly. "I don't deserve you, Joshua Gabriel Matthews."

"And I don't deserve you amazing incredible breathtaking Maya Penelope Hart," Josh says, smiling softly, and adds, "But we have each other anyway."

He moves to get up after a moment, the air cold and snow expected to fall in the next twenty-four hours, but she tugs him back down. "Can we—" she stops, begins again, "Can we just stay here, for a bit?"

Josh stares, watches the way that she gazes at him, hopeful and endearing and lovestruck, her hair all over the place, and reaches out with his free hand to brush her hair out of her face as he leans over to kiss her lips gently. "Of course," he says when he pulls back. "Anything for you, gorgeous."

—

The superhero team disbands the same night.

It was always going to happen, Maya tells Josh over coffee one morning. They'd never worked well as a team, had always split into two sides or three depending on the fight. Riley had had Farkle and Lucas on her side, because she always did, and Maya had looped her arm with Zay and Smackle's and they had walked out of Topanga's three hours after Josh had left.

It's done, and Maya doesn't seem to have expected it to come a second sooner.

The kids of Maya’s patrol area receive a visit from Maya Hart and Farkle Minkus, who bring boxes upon boxes of food and proper clothing and send letters of recommendation for the parents to varying workplaces. Maya casts Siena a grin and holds up a leather jacket that isn’t new, per se—when the girl brings it home to her mothers, they exchange a look that Siena doesn’t understand and grin at their daughter knowingly. Josh writes an article about it, asks if she thinks it’s enough and Maya laughs and hangs it on her apartment wall and says it’s the kind of things she wishes she’d had when she was back there.

She and Riley don't talk anymore, but Maya still comes to dinner with the Matthews when Josh does—she jokes with Auggie and tries her best not to let the gap between the two friends fall. Josh can still see it failing steadily; he doesn't push Riley, but he reminds her as kindly as he can that Maya is trying to fix things where Riley won't reach out (he stops when he sees that this is doing the opposite of what he wants to do). Maya assures him constantly that it's fine, that less closeness is a better relationship than she's had in years, but he can see everything falling apart around her and he really, truly can't do a thing about it.

"I'm sorry," he still murmurs, and she presses kisses all over his cheeks and forehead and eyelids and promises that _it's okay, I'm fine, it's okay._

It's not okay.

Maya gets expelled from NYU in the middle of the school year, without reason. Riley is friends with the woman in control of the board.

Maya signs up to go to art schools in Paris, California and Rhode Island, and does not retaliate. Riley continues to fire arrow after arrow, digging her speared hooks under Maya's skin, but Maya always just gives her a sweet smile and says, "Love you too." She tells Josh it's true, and doesn't say another word to it.

At some point Riley's shining exterior must crack, though, because they're watching A _Cinderella Story_ when, visible from the window, the lights of Greenwich turn blinding.

Maya sits up with a choked curse, shadows seeping into her skin in the way that they do so often now that she doesn't separate herself into two parts, and Josh switches to the news as she stands up.

“Make sure she's okay?” Josh asks, and she nods with a look on her face that means she's got nothing stopping her.

—

This is what the people of the East Coast and onward see on the news:

A light, pulsing brighter and brighter by every second; a storm of unstoppable, blinding light. People running. Car crashes. Screams.

A horde of shadows wrapping around this light until it is captured in a pulsing orb; silence; anticipation; a small shadow of a woman.

What seems like an hour-long battle; lights and shadows raging and snapping against each other. The shadows creep up from below, always around somewhere, though, and the light ends here. The city is engulfed in blackness and shadow. People say it's less terrifying than the blinding light.

A white figure appears in the space where the shadow and light were last seen. The shadow woman is visible when close enough to the silhouette of light, and though footage is unclear, people say they embraced.

A girl in the same area, her skin dark and hair curly and cheeks sprinkled with freckles, says that they had it coming to them. The media puzzles at her words as the city returns to its normal state, and the shadow and light disappear from sight.

—

When she gets back to Josh's apartment, her shadows shroud her like they never have before. She has an arm around her shoulders and it glows iridescent white; Maya doesn't say another word but Josh knows that it's Riley.

"She wants me to hate her," Maya says softly, sitting on the floor with her bottle of water. Her shadows are wrapped around Riley like a blanket.

Josh nods from the counter; he'd had an inkling of it, and this only confirms his guesses. "Yeah."

Maya shakes her head, caps the bottle, and seems too distant to focus—she sways and goes to lean back on her hands. "She hates herself because of _me._ "

"Hey—" Josh comes around and out of the kitchen, "No, we're not doing that. You both need rest and to _talk_ about this, alright?"

She sighs heavily, stares hard at Riley, but doesn't argue as Josh folds her gently into his arms. "I just want us to actually _be_ okay," is the last thing she says, and then they fall asleep on the floor—probably the darkest apartment in the building, but one of the warmest, one of the most familiar.

Maya breathes awake in his arms, and Josh slips into sleep.

—

And so things mend, slowly. It takes two days for them to open up to each other—Riley spilling out fears and accidents and things that made her the way that she was on the night that she’d attacked Siena’s group, Maya talking about the simplest things that broke their friendship the first time and kept it that way when they tried to mend it. The details, both of them forget and Josh is not one to document things so private, but are something along the lines of a falling-out caused by a boy and another falling-out caused by the seeds of jealousy that came from it.

They’re not trying anymore, though—not the way that they had been—to keep their friendship the way that it had been in that first year of college. “Nothing can stay the same way forever,” Maya decides, “And neither can this.” So they change—they settle easier into their lives, don’t have to organize patrols but find their schedules overlapping anyway; Maya graduates a different college with a teaching degree on her hands, and becomes an art teacher at JQA High School.

On their wedding day, Isadora is Maya’s best woman, and Riley is content with that. Auggie is Josh’s best man, and he is also content with that.

“I promise that I will love you as long as the sun shines,” Josh says softly, and Maya breathes out a laugh, her hands tight in his.

“And beyond that,” she reminds him; Josh lets the grin overtake him, squeezing his eyes shut and letting his tears blur his vision—there’s nothing, he thinks, that could break this moment apart.

“And beyond that,” he repeats. “I promise I will never, ever break the one that I just made right now.”

Maya nods, squeezing his hands, and says softly, “We have lifetimes ahead of us,” she says. “And I will be here by your side for all of them.”

**Author's Note:**

> Listen I spent four hours editing and adding onto this and it still feels sub-par but I'm never going to post it if I keep doing this so LET ME KNOW WHAT YOU THINK IN THE COMMENTS PLEASE
> 
> Thank you for reading this! I hope you enjoyed, leave a kudos if you did and also refer to the text above these two sentences :)


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